Lifestyle

It’s that time of year again. Whether you love it or hate it, your partner WILL be expecting something special for Valentine’s Day (no matter what they say!).
Time to dust off your striatum – the part of the brain that deals with love – and do the same thing you do every year… a candlelit dinner, red roses and possibly a sunset walk.

Or you could carry on reading, do something a little different and earn yourself some extra relationship points.

Share the Love

There’s quite a lot of evidence that looking at cute creatures makes you happier. So how about sharing Valentine’s Day with some furry friends? Surprise your true love with an animal experience at the zoo.

What could be more romantic than feeding fish to Humboldt penguins – did you know they pair for life? –or getting up close and personal with Amur tigers. The majority of zoos offer animal experiences but, if you really want to impress, Colchester Zoo offer a Perfect Partners package that includes a bottle of bubbly and a bouquet of flowers.

Find out your Future

Nothing says romance like finding out how many children you’re destined to have or when you’re going to get married. Visit a psychic with your partner and ask them all the questions you’re dying to know the answers to.

Be warned though, you might not get the answers you want to hear!

A Magical Evening

Sweep your partner off their feet – that’s leviosa not leviosar – with a Valentine’s dinner in the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

Start off your night with a special love potion cocktail, followed by a three course meal and a tour around the various Harry Potter sets. You’ll also take home a complimentary replica wand of your choice.

Up, Up and Away

Take your relationship to new heights with a romantic hot air balloon flight.

Wrap up warm and enjoy unrivalled views of the country with your loved one. Sunrise and sunset flights add some extra romance to your experience. There are hundreds of launch sites across the UK, so you‘re sure to find somewhere close by.

Something a Little Darker

For those that want to get away from the cringeworthy cards and decorations, how about something a bit more… morbid. Visit the man that started it all, Saint Valentine of Rome.

Unfortunately, as you may have already guessed, he is no longer with us. However, you can visit the remains of Saint Valentine at the Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin. And of course, Dublin is a beautiful city to spend time in.

Take a Break

No, not a clichéd weekend in Paris or a trip through the canals of Venice, although that would be nice. How about a mini-break to Iceland? What could be more romantic than sleeping under the stars and watching the awe-inspiring Northern Lights dance across the sky?

Or perhaps something a little closer to home? Get closer to nature and stay in one of these amazing treehouses. We aren’t talking about the treehouses from your childhood; these are on an entirely different level. With hot tubs and champagne breakfasts, you won’t ever want to come back down to the ground.

Love Bus

Who needs a river cruise or a stretch limo when you could get cosy on the Love Bus this Valentine’s Day?

This romantic sightseeing tour around London will have you cuddled up under a blanket with a box of chocolates and some Bucks Fizz as you learn about the city’s landmarks. With a live singer on-board and a chance to go to the top of the Shard at the end of the tour, this is one bus journey you will actually enjoy.

Do-it-yourself

We all know that going out on Valentine’s Day can be expensive, so why not put a little effort in and surprise your better half with a homemade, romantic scavenger hunt? Create some cheesy clues and plant them around the house for them to solve. Who knows where the hunt may lead?

Hopefully these ideas have sparked your imagination and will help you impress on February 14th. Personally I can’t think of anything better than putting on some washing, filling the dishwasher and sitting down to enjoy a romcom on TV….well we had to get a link in here somewhere!

Comments Off on 10 Surprising Things you can do Before Your Blomberg Warranty Expires

All our Blomberg appliances come with at least a three year warranty. That got us thinking – if you were to buy one today, what could you get done before the warranty expires in three years’ time?

Take a look at the list below to find out! Of course, these are just some of the options – let us know on Facebook or Twitter if you have any more ideas.

1. Get Engaged (or Married)

According to Metro, it takes an average of two years, 11 months and eight days to go from meeting someone special to getting engaged. If you already have a partner, the chances that you’ll be engaged in three years are pretty good.

Once you’re engaged, the average time to the wedding day is also less than three years.

2. Design and Build a Halo Spaceship out of LEGO

If you’re a fan of the video game franchise Halo, you’ll recognise this awesome Lego spaceship as the UNSC Infinity. It’s over three feet long and includes LED lighting as well as a custom base representing a distant city.

Image courtesy of Cody Fowler via Flickr.

Of course you don’t have to build a spaceship. Three years is plenty of time to construct almost anything from LEGO, from famous landmarks, to animals, vehicles and 2D pictures.

3. Complete a Degree

Most UK undergraduate degrees take less than three years to complete. You don’t even have to attend a physical university if you go for distance learning. Use your three years to study something like computer science or nursing and you could literally change your life.

4. Experience a Blue Moon

‘Once in a blue moon’ may refer to a rare event, but you can experience a blue moon roughly once every three years. They aren’t actually blue though – when a season of the year has four full moons, the third one is given this name.

5. Travel to Mars and Back

If you can get your hands on a spacecraft, travelling to Mars only takes around six months. However, Earth and Mars are only close together roughly every two years, so you’d have to wait before coming home again.

6. Learn to Drive

OK, so it doesn’t actually take three years to learn to drive (on average). However, this is the amount of time drivers say it takes to feel confident behind the wheel.

7. Summarise your Favourite Book in Tweets

It took Chris Juby just over three years to turn every chapter of the bible into a tweet (@biblesummary). You could do the same with pretty much any book – War and Peace and The Lord of the Rings trilogy are both shorter than the King James version. Just make sure it’s out of copyright.

8. Get an Extra Second in your Day

You’ve probably heard of leap years, but what about leap seconds? It’s not a regular thing, but roughly every three years there’s an extra second in the day to make up for the difference between the speed of the earth’s rotation and atomic time.

Theoretically, you should adjust your watch.

9. Attend the Largest Art Festival in the World

If you have three years, you’re guaranteed to be able to attend a triennial event. One example is the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale – the largest art festival in the world. It lasts for 50 days and spans 200 villages in the Niigata region of Japan.

10. Shoot a Time Lapse Video

Time lapse photography involves taking a still image every so often and piecing them together into a video. You could try making one of your children or your dog growing up. Three years is plenty of time to make something spectacular, such as this video of the Northern Lights:

One thing you won’t have to wait three years for is a great deal on a new appliance. Take a look at these models from Blomberg for inspiration.

2013 may be in full swing, but it’s not too late to make this year bigger and better than the last with some simple New Year’s resolutions.

Eat Healthier and Keep Fit

Although this might seem like a common and slightly predictable New Year’s resolution, the fact is a healthier lifestyle generally means a happier one. Forget boring diets and fitness regimes, this year why not make being healthy fun for all the family? Give yourself a new hobby like tennis or ballroom dancing; that way you’ll be keeping fit and learning something new.

With the weather still frosty, the last thing you’ll want to eat is cold salad and raw vegetables. Keep warm as well as healthy and whip up some homemade soups, stews and casseroles. With the stylish cream New World dual fuel cooker you can brighten up your kitchen and cook a variety of meals with ease.

Keep the Home Clean

This might be something you aim to do every year, but with winter showing no signs of disappearing it’s far too easy to put off cleaning the dishes or dusting the glass cabinet. Create a chore list for the entire family and stick it on the kitchen wall. Cleaning the house is far easier when everyone chips in and you’ll get the job done far quicker.

To save the pennies and keep your home sparkling, why not create your own multipurpose cleaning solution? Cloths, dusters, mops and tea towels should be replaced regularly to ensure you’re not spreading any harmful bacteria. To make life that little bit easier you could also purchase a dishwasher. As well as saving time, many models are now eco-friendly meaning you’ll use less water compared to hand washing.

Learn Something New Every Day

Put this well-known saying to the test and discover a new fact every day. Reading and browsing the web are great ways to do this. Alternatively, flick on the Discovery channel or Nat Geo Wild and learn about nature and wildlife by watching an exciting documentary. We’re all guilty of watching too much reality TV over Christmas, so this January make sure there’s something more inspiring on your screen. With a new LED TV, an episode of Planet Earth will make you feel like you’re out in the Amazon rainforest with David Attenborough.

You could also learn a new language or take an evening course to improve your skills. Ever wanted to play the piano or learn how to sing? What’s stopping you? The sky is your limit and when it comes to those Christmas gatherings you can feel proud when telling family and friends how much you’ve accomplished in 2013.

Euronics stores are all Independent Electrical Retailers, who as members of Euronics, the Largest Electrical Buying Group in Europe, join forces to create heavyweight buying power. With 30 Member countries across Europe and 11,000 specialist stores and branches, reaching 600 million consumers, every agent in each country is a specialist in the field of Electrical goods.